Trailer Trash

>>A serious actor

Michael Stuhlbarg is being talked of for Oscar nominations following his impressive performance as Larry Gopnik in the Coen brothers' latest comedy A Serious Man. Stuhlbarg is a little-known actor, despite a 20-year career on and off Broadway. He met Joel Coen after performing with the film-maker's wife, Frances McDormand, in a community theatre project. "It was the 52nd Street Project in which kids wrote the plays and professional actors would come in to perform their work," the actor tells me. "It was quite a thrill and I became good friends with Frances." She took her husband to see Stuhlbarg in a David Mamet adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance. Joel called Stuhlbarg in initially to play the Yiddish husband in A Serious Man's Yiddish prologue but was so impressed that he eventually gave him the lead. "I'm still reeling from it, and it's certainly the biggest break of my film career," says Stuhlbarg, a former Tony nominee. "I am Jewish, and on this occasion I think it did help – or at least it didn't hurt." How was the catering on a Jewish movie? "Fantastic," he laughs. "It wasn't kosher or anything particularly Jewish, though, but at the Toronto premiere I noticed they had trays of these little fancy Chinese spoons filled with gefilte fish. That's a nice touch, I thought."

>>Mystic critics

The critics at Red magazine clearly use clairvoyant techniques for their reviews. The December issue of the fash mag (presumably written as far back as September) has given four-star reviews to films which nobody in this world has yet seen, even now. New Moon, starring Robert Pattinson, doesn't have a screening anywhere until this week. The musical Nine, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Penélope Cruz among many others, is not technically even finished yet, despite its planned 18 December release. I wonder if Red know who's won next year's Oscars?

>>Unhappy Haneke

There's obviously something about Michael Haneke's films that seeps out of the screen to unsettle viewers. The critics' press screening of his awesome The White Ribbon this week was like a Haneke film in itself. Several critics arrived late, shuffling into their seats while the opening credits played in stark monochrome silence. Another critic began to eat lunch – how can you get anything down your throat during the tension of a Haneke film. Heads turned in annoyance at the chomping. Then another prominent male critic entered noisily and obviously flustered as Haneke's German narrator intoned the story of strange, violent goings on. The critic made a stooping dash in the dark for a seat, tripping up the aisle steps and spilling hot coffee on to a female viewer. She let out a yelp of pain. The screening room was on edge, disturbed, riled – yet the film was barely five minutes old. Haneke's next film will mark a return to him working in French, and star Isabelle Huppert and Jean Louis Trintignant. According to the director it will be about the "humiliation of the physical degradation in the elderly". Good to see the fella lightening up then.